Annoying Little Fixes

Yes, I do use Windows on occassion and there has been an annoying little problem I have been experiencing with Microsoft Word 2003. Seemed like everytime I changed the default font from Times New Roman to Verdana, it would always revert back. Then I found that there is an incompatability with Word 2003 and Acrobat 7 that prevents Word from saving its preferences!

You might want to change certain default settings in Word, such as the default page margins or font, or your might want to edit toolbar settings or create keyboard shortcuts, AutoText entries, macros, etc. All these settings are saved in the Normal.dot file, which is the file used to create all new documents in Word.

There is a conflict between MS Word 2003 and Adobe Acrobat 7.0 which prevents any changes to the Normal.dot file from being permanently saved.

There are two fixes for this problem:

Manually saving the normal.dot file anytime you make a global change to the template (directions below).

Disabling the Adobe toolbar add-in (way below are directions)

1. Manually saving changes to the Normal.dot file

Anytime you change one of Word’s default settings (margins, fonts, AutoCorrect/AutoText entries, macros, toolbar settings, etc), these changes are stored in the Normal.dot template so that the next time you create a blank document, the changes are there.

To manually save these changes:

Make the necessary changes:

If you are changing your default margins (File, Page Setup) or your default Font (Format, Font), be sure to click the Default button at the bottom of the window.

If you are creating macros, keyboard shortcuts or AutoCorrect/ AutoText Entries, do them as you normally do.

Save the document you are working in and give it a generic name (document 1) or name it whatever you want to call it. This file is not needed for your changes to stick, so you can delete it later if you want to.

Now click and hold the Shift key on your keyboard and click File from the menu above (where it says File, Edit, View, etc.).

You will see Save All on the File menu. Click Save All.

Close completely out of Word and then go back in to make sure your changes are there.

You must use Shift-File-Save All EVERYTIME you make changes to the default settings in Word. One way to make this process a little easier is to add the Save All command to your Standard toolbar. To do this:

Open Word.

Click Tools and select Customize.

Click the Commands tab.

Locate the existing Print icon on the Standard toolbar and drag it off of the toolbar.

On the Commands tab, locate the Categories on the left and select File.

On the right, scroll down the list until you find Save All.

Drag that Save All command from the list up to your toolbar and drop it next to the existing Save icon (or wherever you want it to be).

You can continue to add and remove commands from/to your toolbar/

Click OK when done.

The new Save All icon will look like three diskettes on top of each other.

Now click your new Save All icon to save your changes to the Normal template.

If prompted to save the document you are in, save it and give it a name. You can always go back later and delete that document if you don’t need it.

2. Removing the Adobe Toolbar Add-In

1. Close Word.
2. Click Start and select Run.
3. Type regedit and click OK.
4. Locate [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREMicrosoftOfficeWordAddinsPDFMaker.OfficeAddin]
5. On the right, double-click on LoadBehavior.
6. Change the value of 3 to a 0.
7. Close the Registry Editor (no need to save changes).
8. Now when you open Word, you will notice that the Adobe toolbar and menu have disappeared.
9. To create PDF files now, the user must click File, Print, and select Adobe PDF from the printers list.

IMPORTANT NOTE

If you (or the end-user) attempts to create a PDF file from within Adobe (by opening Adobe 7.0 Pro and selecting Create Adobe PDF), Adobe will notice that the plug-in in Word is missing, repair the problem, restart the computer, and change this registry setting back to 3, which then adds the Adobe toolbar add-in back into Word. Therefore, users need to be made aware of this.